STUDY ON INCREASING THE THERMAL PROTECTION OF HIGH-TEMPERATURE HELMETS USED BY FIREFIGHTERS.

Protective helmets are very important components of individual fire-fighting equipment. They have different roles including: protecting the head from throwing objects, protecting from high temperatures or electrical shocks. In order to be used, they must ensure the absorption of shocks in the upper part of the head, to have penetration resistance, to have lateral crush resistance, to provide protection against hot liquids and high temperature resistance. The helmet material has to provide the same properties when is exposed to 90 ± 5° for 20 minutes in the area of the upper head and ear, and at 180 ± 5° for 5 minutes in the area of the neck protector. At the moment, fire-fighting helmets are made of high-quality polymers. This paper aims to analyse the thermal behaviour of a new material useful for fire-fighting helmets: hot modelling material, under the form of a glass fibre-reinforced bismaleimide composite material, compared to a molded polypropylene injection. Thermal analysis will be performed using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and Dynamo Mechanical Analysis (DMA) and the thermal properties of the new material will be highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]